Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.

The ancient Hebrews had a word for this awareness of the importance of things. They called it kavod. Kavod originally was a business term, referring to the heaviness of something, which was crucial in weights and measures and the maintaining of fairness in transactions. Over time the word began to take on a more figurative meaning, referring to the importance and significance of something.

To me some of the greatest writing is when somebody puts something in words that you felt and experienced and you go, that's it.

When someone wrongs us, we rarely (if ever) want to do the same thing back. Why? Because we want to do something more harmful. Likewise, when someone insults us, our instinct is to search for words that will be more insulting.Revenge always escalates.

Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.

This is why for thousands of years Christians have found the cross to be so central to life. It speaks to us of God's suffering, God's pain, God's broken heart. It's God making the first move and then waiting for our response.

We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.